While this is wonderful news, there is still much
more that needs to be done to ensure that animals no longer suffer at facilities
like USGE. People must refuse to support pet stores that continue to sell
animals—any animals.

Since the raid, USGE has been effectively dead. It has not bought or sold a
single animal, meaning that far more than 26,000 animals will be spared from the
exotic pet trade.

Back in December, humane agents and officials from Arlington, Texas seized
more than 26,000 neglected animals, including sloths, ringtail lemurs,
hedgehogs, hamsters, mice, guinea pigs, sugar gliders, prairie dogs, ferrets,
scorpions, and other mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and arachnids from an
Arlington-based hellhole known as U.S. Global Exotics, Inc. (USGE). The
confiscation, which followed a seven-month undercover investigation by PETA, is
believed to be the biggest in history.

During his time at USGE, PETA’s investigator saw animals crammed into soda
bottles, milk jugs, and other containers that were unsuitable for housing
animals, to say the least. (PETA’s investigator captured video footage showing a
USGE employee trying to shake and pound frogs out of these hellish prisons.)
Iguanas and other lizards perished inside mesh bags and "shipping cups," never
even having been unloaded. At least 12,000 turtles remained boxed up for weeks
in the facility's warehouse. In just one day, 657 turtles were recorded on the
facility's dead list.

The rescuers extracted the decomposing, liquefying remains of more than 200
iguanas from bags containing nearly an equal number of live iguanas. The
tropical animals had been kept in USGE’s frigid warehouse without food or water.

Sick, injured, and dying animals, including a squirrel whose neck had been
severely lacerated and a chinchilla who was bleeding from a prolapsed rectum,
were put into a freezer to die. (For more details and information on USGE’s
other victims, see PETA’s blog. Be warned, however; the video footage is highly
disturbing.)

For as long as I’ve been involved in the animal protection movement, I’ve
seen one horrific case after another, each seemingly worse than the one before.
But I can’t imagine what could possibly “top” this, and I hope to never find
out.

But there is good news: In early January, after reviewing evidence collected
by PETA’s investigator, including a picture of a hedgehog whose leg had been
chewed off and video footage of dying snakes and a wallaby who had been left to
perish in a filthy, windowless room, Arlington Municipal Judge Michael Smith
divested Jasen and Vanessa Shaw—the owners and operators of USGE—of all of the
animals.

The Shaw’s appealed the decision, but just the other day, Tarrant County
Court Judge Jennifer Rymell, who also reviewed the evidence from PETA’s
investigation, upheld the original ruling. The Shaw’s will never regain custody
of the animals! They had no business having custody of them in the first place.

PETA arranged for experts to set up a facility to care for the animals who
were seized from USGE. The SPCA of Texas, the Humane Society of North Texas, the
Detroit Zoo, and other groups have been taking wonderful care of the animals,
and PETA has secured permanent homes for many of the animals at the Detroit Zoo.
(This just goes to show how zoos can step up and become refuges for rescued
animals rather than for-profit ventures that capture or breed “popular” animals
for public display.)

Since the raid, USGE has been effectively dead. It has not bought or sold a
single animal, meaning that far more than 26,000 animals will be spared from the
exotic pet trade.

While this is wonderful news, there is still much more that needs to be done
to ensure that animals no longer suffer at facilities like USGE. People must
refuse to support pet stores that continue to sell animals—any animals. For
years, USGE imported and exported hundreds of thousands of animals a year for
eventual sale at pet stores, including PETCO and PetSmart. PETA has investigated
both of these companies—and other suppliers—in the past and found that neglect
and abuse was the norm. (See my post about PetSmart for information about an
undercover investigation at another one of PetSmart’s suppliers.)

As Judge Smith noted after ruling to divest the animals from USGE, “Evidence
was received which indicated that this facility was operated in accordance with
industry standards of the exotic animal trade. While this may be true, this
Court is not free to substitute those standards for the standards set by Texas
statutes."

Exotic animals belong in their natural habitats, not in substandard
conditions in any facility in any state. If we are to stop the exotic animal
trade once and for all, we must stop shopping at the stores that keep it
alive—and encourage everyone we know to do the same.

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